Are you using salon management software already? If you aren’t, you sure are missing out on arguably the most impactful technology the beauty industry has ever seen. It is not your fault, though. You probably don’t know how beneficial an advanced software program can be to a salon business. But don’t panic. This article is about to let you in on a golden secret: The secret weapon that is salon management software!
What is salon software?
In summary, salon management software is a centralized hub for salon task management automation, online appointment scheduling, automated inventory management, resource allocation & tracking, employee management, and client data management, among other functions. It is an all-in-one solution that keeps everything in one place, making salon management a whole lot easier. In other words, it’s any salon manager’s secret weapon to accelerated, sustainable growth.
Here are 6 more reasons why salon software is your salon’s secret weapon:
1. Effortless planning and scheduling
Your software will help you streamline and optimize scheduling in multiple ways. For starters, the software will enable you to:
· Set key performance indicators (KPIs) and share them with your staff members. The KPIs can be anything from the appointments completed in a day, retail products sold in a week, to the number of return clients in a year. You can feed the program with as many time-bound goals as possible and it will track those goals for you every step of the way.
· Create a roadmap to your vision and mission statement, complete with timelines and milestones.
· Manage human resources and task dependencies. Your software will give you a calendar view of all your employees’ schedules, so you know who is available for extra appointments, who drags his/her feet with appointments, who earns you the most revenue, and who gets you the most return customers.
2. Online appointment booking
Salon management software can serve as a complete hair salon online booking system. You can customize the system any way you want- it is up to you to make it work as you do. The software will:
· Enable clients to book appointments in their own time, at their best convenience, and from anywhere in the world all around the clock.
· Allow you to customize the appointment scheduling steps on the booking system. You get to decide which details clients enter with each appointment.
· Send confirmations and reminders for each appointment booked.
· Send notifications and alerts in case of changes in appointment dates and/or times. You can use the software to notify the affected clients automatically via email or text message.
· Allow you to set all appointments within your business hours. If you close on certain days, say on major holidays, the software allows you to exclude those days from your online calendar.
· Give you the power to control appointment data access: Who can see your employees’ schedules and which changes an employee can make to their schedule if any.
· Give you the power to control how long in advance a client can cancel an appointment and the fees attached to each cancellation if any.
· Allows you to change the layout of your booking platform and include your brand identity visuals such as the logo and color scheme. That ensures consistency in your brand identity.
3. Helps with task and resource management too
When managing a salon, you always have multiple management tasks to juggle and appointments to assign employees. Most management software come with spectacular task management abilities that you can depend on to create tasks and subtasks, assign those tasks, and delegate your management tasks with a lot more effectiveness. It will give you accurate employee performance reports based on your set KPIs, so you know in one quick glance which employees have the bandwidth to take on the tasks you need to delegate. The software will allow you to assign tasks to single assignees or multiple assignees in a few quick taps or clicks, and then monitor the progress of each task.
Your software will also help you balance resource management for optimal employee performance. It gives you real-time insights on which team members add value to your team and which ones add nothing more than dead weight. Your salon will not grow if, for example, only a few team members take on all the work while a sizeable part of the team just idles around. Your software enables you to keep tabs on everyone’s workload for optimal balance.
4. Better inventory management
Accurate inventory management is key to optimal profitability and team performance. Your software will help you track stock in your retail section in order to minimize stock errors and other costly ordering problems. Among other benefits, your software’s inventory system will help you:
· Predict and meet demand: The system helps you predict market shifts by giving you analyses and summaries of past market trends. In case of a surge in demand, you always have enough products to meet the additional demand. In case of a dip in demand, you never have too many unwanted products lying on the shelves.
· Reduce the risk of overselling by helping you keep an eye on the products that are in stock and the ones that are on backorder.
· Helps you cut costs by ensuring that you don’t make bigger orders than necessary. Excess products only inflate your transportation fees, storage costs, and insurance. Excess inventory is also at a higher risk of obsolescence, theft, and loss. What’s more, carrying too much inventory means your money is held up in unmoving stock. That money could be put to better, more profitable use.
· Helps you track product expiry dates so that you don’t end up losing your money in damaged goods.
· Boosts productivity in two main ways. First, automated inventory management eliminates the need for your team to keep manual records of each product. That gives them more time to pick up extra appointments. Secondly, the software ensures that every employee has all the products they need for optimal performance.
· Boosts profits by giving you a better understanding of both product availability and demand, consequently boosting inventory turnover. Higher inventory turnover leads to greater profits.
· Improved customer experience. You always deliver clients’ orders in good time.
5. It’s a time-saver!
This goes without saying: Automation is the biggest time saver in the history of salon management. All you need to do is set triggers for what line of actions should set the automation process in motion. The system does the rest for you. For example, you only need to set the levels that a product should reach for the system to automatically order more inventory. This is something you do once and forget about it. You, therefore, save a lot of time and energy by automating online appointment scheduling, inventory management, scheduling, and your other core responsibilities.
6. Guarantees data safety and security
Clients trust you with heaps of sensitive data, from their credit card information, home addresses, to phone numbers. If a data thief gains access to your databases, that could lead to reputation damage, unwanted lawsuits, and significant expenses. These are nightmares you will easily avoid by hiding your data under the safety and privacy infrastructure that cloud-based software provides. Not even a malicious employee can steal your data because you reserve the power to give or deny data access to your staff members.
Conclusion
Salon management software is, without a doubt, the secret weapon your growth strategy has been missing. Invest in quality software today and integrate it into your operations. You will do more, make more profit, and enjoy your job a lot more with salon management software.